Just how much room we'll have to customize the Virtual tabletop will be what gets players off the fence, so to speak. The game is what you make it, truly.
5th edition will have an option to walk away from the table and let a bot handle the grind....
5th adition will let you pay 5$ to wotc for powerleveling your character from 1 to 26
5th edition will have a petition queque for your gm
in all honesty the "features" described by the author came from limitations that computer games have in contrast to pen and paper.
the reason why each mmo and their siblings use standard grp layout of tank,healer, dps (and buffer) is because the quests/ encounters relay on linear, scripted computer ai. in pen&paper its totally ok and challenging for 2 mages and a clerik or a group of thieves to do an adventure.
the origin of pen&paper rpg for me is not some ruleset but to tell an interactive story by the gm with an audience of players. the rules are only there to ensure that the actions are some kind of limited and fun to play out. in that aspect computer mmorpgs have still years to catch up to classic p&p
if your bored, visit my blog at: http://craylon.wordpress.com/ dealing with the look of mmos with the nvidia 3d vision glasses
Also remember that we have Three core books at this time of writing. 4E will keep expanding and the rules makes IMO more sense than those of 3.X.
I like the fact that there's defined roles to fill. One of my pet pieves is when a guy in my group makes some useless charcter that will be extremely overpowered at level 20, but not till then and the rest of the group has to piggy back him most of the way there. Plus, even fighters are useful now
For those of you who are not familiar with the P&PRPG genre let me inform you here; it has been dying and losing players by the thousands to online games. Wizards of the Coast did what they had to do; try to capture their player base that was been lost to MMOs. The only reason I play MMOs is due to the fact that I can longer get a group of 5 adults together to play a P&P game anymore. Most of my friends have families and careers that prevent them from dedicating the amount of time that is needed to participate in a game, and I'm not even talking about the Dungeon Master, just the players.
As a DM who never uses published adventures, as I prefer to write my own, it's almost like having a second job. I put in several hours a night crafting a story, creating characters, and producing storylines that my players may or may not use. On average I would say about 40 hours go into starting a new campaign. Most people who have grown up playing P&P dion't have that kind of time anymore, and this is where MMOs come into play.
If you have never played in a P&P game then you are surely missing one of the best interactive expierences in gaming, period. The hard part is finding a good group of players who play the game, but don't take it to serious. I welcome D&D back into the fold, and hope that it continues to push the envelope of gaming.
4th edition, having tried it, feels like a mmorpg. It seems to me that they watered d20 down for the sake of making it easier to program into games. I enjoyed 3rd and 3.5, I found it better than 2nd edition; even though I thought 3.5 could get overly complicated at times 4th is overly simplified. My friends and I are sticking to 3.5. Maybe 5th will be better. PnP games though the inspiration for mmorpg, despite this odd co-mingling, they really are two separate entities. All the web utilities really could have been done for 3rd its really about time. I really don't know if 4th will bring anything to the table. Most independent developers want to continue working with 3.5, mostly because its establish but also because 4th ed isn't free for them to make modules for. Bye bye open gaming license. All that said you have to question what will come out of 4th that benefits the players.
Games must evolve to keep their player base interested, AND bring new players to the table (so to speak). Example: Rifts (by Palladium Books): best setting in P&P, but the rules havnet changed in 20 years. So, players stop playing and stores stop stocking the games. D&D while I don't agree with 3 rule changes in less than 10 years, I can understand why. Evolve or become non existent, basic rule of the universe.
...so, if I understand this correctly, they're ADDING the need for the holy trinity to D&D? Tank, healer, CC/DPS... That's the one part I always hated about MMORPGs, you always needed a specific group setup. D&D you could really pull off any sort of group setup without need for specific classes (though some form of healing obviously helped quite a bit in making stuff easier). This should never happen in a pen and paper RPG: "Ooh, I wanna play a rogue" "actually, we need a tank, you're rolling fighter" "...screw that *leaves*" "ok guys guess we can't play tonight, we don't have the right group setup"
Are you sure you were playing D&D? Because if you were playing without a rogue or a cleric then your DM was hacking the game to pieces and unlocking doors like crazy. No party from base D&D up to 3.5 made it far without a healer unless the DM was fudging every roll. Case in point, according to the rules an Ogre will drop any level 3 class but a fighter or barb in a couple of swings, or close to it. Play DDO a bit and you'll see how fast most monsters take people down without a DM there pretending your rogue didn't just take a tree to the chest for 1.5x his max HPs for that level. Throw in crits and it's a party wipe in short order.
And wouldn't it seem odd that this evil overlord hasn't locked a single door in his palace or bothered to booby trap his treasure room?
The fact that this is a complaint is proof that you haven't read any of the rules for 4E, because if you had you would know that this actually does away with most of the class restrictions in this regard. There are 2 healing classes now, and anyone can heal themselves for a considerable amount(healers are only really needed if you're taking a good beating while actually in a fight, no more of this 2 HPs a day crap), and all theivery based actions are rolled into one skill that anyone can learn, with the DM's option(isn't everything?) that some stuff is specialized to the rogue only.
I'd encourage you all to at least familiarize yourself with some of changes before you make blanket assumptions.
Are you sure you were playing D&D? Because if you were playing without a rogue or a cleric then your DM was hacking the game to pieces and unlocking doors like crazy. No party from base D&D up to 3.5 made it far without a healer unless the DM was fudging every roll. Case in point, according to the rules an Ogre will drop any level 3 class but a fighter or barb in a couple of swings, or close to it. Play DDO a bit and you'll see how fast most monsters take people down without a DM there pretending your rogue didn't just take a tree to the chest for 1.5x his max HPs for that level. Throw in crits and it's a party wipe in short order. And wouldn't it seem odd that this evil overlord hasn't locked a single door in his palace or bothered to booby trap his treasure room? The fact that this is a complaint is proof that you haven't read any of the rules for 4E, because if you had you would know that this actually does away with most of the class restrictions in this regard. There are 2 healing classes now, and anyone can heal themselves for a considerable amount(healers are only really needed if you're taking a good beating while actually in a fight, no more of this 2 HPs a day crap), and all theivery based actions are rolled into one skill that anyone can learn, with the DM's option(isn't everything?) that some stuff is specialized to the rogue only.
Well, are you sure you've played a pen & paper RPG at all? Because if you imply that picking a lock is the only way to open a door or to get to what is around it, I'm blaming you and the other players for lack of imagination. Fighters and barbarians just bash the door, druid shapes the wooden chest (or metal, or stone), monk can ignore object hardness (useful for cutting steel bars in prison), wizards and sorcs have 'knock' spell that unlocks stuff and disintegrate that, well, does... And that's just the ways the rules directly support opening stuff up. That still leaves out dozens of ways imaginative players can get doors opened (find the guard with the keys, knock on the door and wait until they open etc.)
And traps... Don't talk to me about traps. *half-orc fighter walks into trap.Trap goes off, half-orc takes damage.* "Grunt. Trap." *half-orc goes to kill the guy who set the trap.* Monks and paladins simply save vs. the trap, clerics buff themselves, barbarians have improved evasion, and both ranger and bard class can see it before stepping on it. And of course there's the old staple 'let the minion go first'.
In pen&paper, all these systems work. You don't need to have someone who gives '30hp/sec' during a fight to the fighter, since if he's getting knocked about he can do something different to avoid taking that damage (expertise, disarm, knockdown enemies etc. etc.) And there's always running away or letting someone else take the beating (like the wizard, who's bound to be real appreciative).
In most MMO's simplified fighting rules, everything is based on modding the damage per second, hit point buffer, aggro range & level, and incoming healing per second for a character. You could simply calculate the relative values between the party and the encounter, and declare a winner right away.
I'm not saying that simplified rules are a bad thing. I've played with even lighter, storytelling type rules, and they work fine. What I'm saying is that I don't like what I see in the new rules system, and think it's a huge change from the basic feel of the old system, even larger then the leap from 2nd ed to 3rd.
4th Edition may be D&D, but it sure as hell isn't AD&D! Wizards may have well just re-released the old Elf is a class/dwarf is a class original D&D. Simple is fine for starting a game or playing with novices or children, but the complexity of AD&D is what made it fun - and it still required MORE rules because intelligent players came up with things not even close to covered by the rules. DMing was a fulltime job! Miniatures and hex terrain made things better [as the online program may in some respects - IFF it allows the DM to use whatever rules he wishes], as did programs like DMGenie, but characters had depth.
3rd Edition was dumbed down, 4th Edition is fully lobotomised! No more D&D for me, thanks.
4th Edition may be D&D, but it sure as hell isn't AD&D! Wizards may have well just re-released the old Elf is a class/dwarf is a class original D&D. Simple is fine for starting a game or playing with novices or children, but the complexity of AD&D is what made it fun - and it still required MORE rules because intelligent players came up with things not even close to covered by the rules. DMing was a fulltime job! Miniatures and hex terrain made things better [as the online program may in some respects - IFF it allows the DM to use whatever rules he wishes], as did programs like DMGenie, but characters had depth. 3rd Edition was dumbed down, 4th Edition is fully lobotomised! No more D&D for me, thanks.
The most fascinating thing about P&P is the fact that you can "mod" the rules to fit YOUR game. MMOs don't allow you to do that at all. In fact, MMOs have dumbed down gaming in my opinion; once you find a strategy against a boss it ALWAYS works. On the other hand, you can't count on a recurring villian to use the same strategies in P&P, the DM won't allow it lol.
LOL at the people who are saying 4E brings the dreaded "trinity" to tabletop RPGs.
It is NOT a rule that every party MUST contain a character for each role. It is a suggestion, intended mainly for people who are new to RPGs.
If you want to have a game where the players are all Rangers, I'm sure you can manage just fine. If the campaign requires some finessing or modification to make this viable, so be it.
That is what the DM is for.
It is the DM's job to make the game fun for the players, no matter how they choose to play.
That is the difference between a DM and a computer, and why tabletop games have the potential to be so much more entertaining.
If your DM runs his campaign like a computer, maybe you should find a new DM.
DnD and indeed all PnP games have always had that element of endless possibilities. That was the whole point. I myself hated when we focused on the mechanics more than the strategy and story telling. All the calculations could take forever, and half the time I looked for ways to avoid the monsters in interesting ways rather than have to sit through all the rolls for constant combat.
And of course the situations you found yourself in were endless. Sure some overlord might have locked doors, but as you mentioned there are countless ways to overcome these. Other times you were just in natural caves and there might be no need for a thief. Other times there might be need for absolute stealth and you would send in ONLY the thief. It all depended.
The game was for a small group of players, they were the focus of the world, the action was all tailored around them. The complexities and possibility of situation was all up to them and the DM and they could take advantage of the rules and handbook content to whatever extent desired.
I believe the whole problem with MMORPGs today is that they were based on such a wide-scope roleplaying environment that they could never hope to match. Sure the computer could do all the calculations much better, so we got single player RPGs where at least the player was still the focus of the world and the story could be well crafted and written, with multiple possibilities in the best titles, but even there much more limited than PnP. Then we had a few games like Neverwinter Nights where I think they had the right idea for online application of DnD type mechanics, where you could play over the internet with your friends, but still craft things to their preferences.
The jump to MMORPG was however, the mistake. Now there were thousands of players in one world. Dev created content could never be tailored to them at a large enough scale to be interesting. All the endless possibilities were gone and we were left with the leveling and the dungeon crawling, only small parts of the PnP RPGs and hardly able to bear the keywords ROLE PLAYING.
Instead what we should have gotten out of MMOs (and indeed some of the early ones showed steps in the right direction, but it has been a backward slide since then) was the vast potential of computer system to handle all of the mechanics to create a rich dynamic persistent world where the thousands of players interacting with each other and the environment in competitive and cooperative ways could create content spontaneously with every action.
Instead we found that the PnP design doesn't work in that open persistent setting and we get more of the arbitrary mechanics that lead to instances, soul-bound equipment, etc. because with all these people running around in a world that was supposed to focus on the adventuring party having fun encounters in a dungeon and getting all the phat loot, we had people running into each other and ruining things for each other because the design was never intended to take advantage of player encounters. Just imagine if you and your PnP pals entered the dungeon only to be told by the DM that all the loot was gone, the monsters were all dead, cuz someone beat you to it.
But the point of this thread is not to fix what has long been broken in MMORPG design, and although I realize that PnP games are largely what you make of them, it just seems somewhat ridiculous that the next gen of DnD is being informed by MMORPG design which was flawed for being based on small-party PnP systems to begin with. Thank goodness you can just keep your old manuals instead of waking up one day to find that a patch has irrevocably changed the game you came to know and love.
For those of you who are not familiar with the P&PRPG genre let me inform you here; it has been dying and losing players by the thousands to online games. Wizards of the Coast did what they had to do; try to capture their player base that was been lost to MMOs. The only reason I play MMOs is due to the fact that I can longer get a group of 5 adults together to play a P&P game anymore. Most of my friends have families and careers that prevent them from dedicating the amount of time that is needed to participate in a game, and I'm not even talking about the Dungeon Master, just the players. As a DM who never uses published adventures, as I prefer to write my own, it's almost like having a second job. I put in several hours a night crafting a story, creating characters, and producing storylines that my players may or may not use. On average I would say about 40 hours go into starting a new campaign. Most people who have grown up playing P&P dion't have that kind of time anymore, and this is where MMOs come into play. If you have never played in a P&P game then you are surely missing one of the best interactive expierences in gaming, period. The hard part is finding a good group of players who play the game, but don't take it to serious. I welcome D&D back into the fold, and hope that it continues to push the envelope of gaming. Earth
A-friggin-men, brother. I haven't been able to find a group to play my campaigns since I moved from NJ 11 years ago. I have stories saved up for years-worth of AD&D campaigns, and no players to challenge with them.
A good DM is hard to find. A great DM who doesn't throw everything together on-the-fly is worth keeping at all costs. Sadly, no one seems to realize this anymore. Some days it makes me want to weep.
I long for the days of old-school tabletop AD&D, Rifts, etc...
No godless person can comprehend those minute distinctions in doctrine that provide true believers excuse for mayhem. -Glen Cook
LOL at the people who are saying 4E brings the dreaded "trinity" to tabletop RPGs. It is NOT a rule that every party MUST contain a character for each role. It is a suggestion, intended mainly for people who are new to RPGs. If you want to have a game where the players are all Rangers, I'm sure you can manage just fine. If the campaign requires some finessing or modification to make this viable, so be it. That is what the DM is for. It is the DM's job to make the game fun for the players, no matter how they choose to play. That is the difference between a DM and a computer, and why tabletop games have the potential to be so much more entertaining. If your DM runs his campaign like a computer, maybe you should find a new DM.
/agreed
but the problem is that new players will get the impression they are limited and i dont want people believing that bilbo beutlin stood in the rain for hours shouting "lf tank and healer to make a ring run"
if your bored, visit my blog at: http://craylon.wordpress.com/ dealing with the look of mmos with the nvidia 3d vision glasses
I'm just sorry for the poor bard. He seems to be gone, while Druids, Rangers, Monks and Barbarians need to wait for their own supplements. Hope you didn't play a bard in a campaign that's getting 'upgraded' to 4.0 by the DM. Or a Gnome Illusionist. Or a Half-Orc anything.
I'm just sorry for the poor bard. He seems to be gone, while Druids, Rangers, Monks and Barbarians need to wait for their own supplements. Hope you didn't play a bard in a campaign that's getting 'upgraded' to 4.0 by the DM. Or a Gnome Illusionist. Or a Half-Orc anything.
Don't be alarmed by the alarmist, he obviously hasn't read the 4th ed rules yet. You can easily convert your 3.5ed character to 4th edition. What this new addition does is take away all of the rules that were not needed. Now your group has room to "roleplay" without being hampered by too many rules. It reminds me of the Story Teller system for White Wolf games. Also, if your character is not represented in the new rule set just yet, then check out the D&D forums. I found a kick ass druid template that I can't wait to use.
I can totaly understand the reason why most groups don't want to conver to 4th editon. My suggestion is to play what you feel most comfoprtable playing. I got rid of my 3.5 books, and only kept Eberron which I plan to use for my game world. Again, no one is being forced to play or buy the 4th edition game. And let's be honest here; you could play for years and never use half of the 3.5 edition books that were printed.
One thing a lot of people are forgetting as they rush to make snarky criticisms of the new edition -- these are just the core rulebooks. These books are meant only as a foundation, the bare basics you need in order to be able to play the game. If you tried to play D&D using ONLY the core rulebooks of any previous edition, you might be surprised at how shallow the game would feel.
Going to have to disagree slightly given that my group played for many years with the first edition PHB Dm guide and Monmster manual.
For those of you who are not familiar with the P&PRPG genre let me inform you here; it has been dying and losing players by the thousands to online games. Wizards of the Coast did what they had to do; try to capture their player base that was been lost to MMOs. The only reason I play MMOs is due to the fact that I can longer get a group of 5 adults together to play a P&P game anymore. Most of my friends have families and careers that prevent them from dedicating the amount of time that is needed to participate in a game, and I'm not even talking about the Dungeon Master, just the players. As a DM who never uses published adventures, as I prefer to write my own, it's almost like having a second job. I put in several hours a night crafting a story, creating characters, and producing storylines that my players may or may not use. On average I would say about 40 hours go into starting a new campaign. Most people who have grown up playing P&P dion't have that kind of time anymore, and this is where MMOs come into play. If you have never played in a P&P game then you are surely missing one of the best interactive expierences in gaming, period. The hard part is finding a good group of players who play the game, but don't take it to serious. I welcome D&D back into the fold, and hope that it continues to push the envelope of gaming. Earth
This post made me chuckle. WotC did not "Do what they had to do" in the least. I must say, you must make an excellent DM, for you have one hell of an imagination! All Wizards of the Coast did was try to cash in on a current market of online gamers by using a well known intellectual property name that they have rights to. If they wanted to make a game patterned after MMO's they could have easily put together some hybrid rules, as they have done in the past, and stamp an original/new name on it. Instead they took something that is known well, and cherished by many, and bastardized it.
I have dozens of friends who still make time to do TT gaming, OLD PnP style. Not this new crap. The reason WotC, and other similar gaming companies are losing players is not due to people gaming online. It is due to their manufacture of inferior, and degenerating quality in their products. I am an online MMO player of a LONG time, but I am still a role player. I do not buy many new PnP products however because most are crap. I will buy some, or read them over in the shop to see if I may enjoy, and am becoming increasingly discouraged. The patterns of current gaming trends in the PnP world is on a decline. Technology, and MMO's are not to at fault. They have no one to blame but themselves.
Ok this may indeed be a silly question. If it is I apologize in advance, but does anyone know where the OP got the image that he used to display this article on the frontpage of the site? I would love to find it and make a wallpaper out of it if anyone has any ideas. Thanks!
I happen to be of the unusual generation that discovered gaming at the dawn of graphical RPGs (Bard's Tale anyone?) and the height of DnD. My first games were out of the Red Box but we soon moved on to 1ED and AD&D (then 3rd, 3.5 and now 4e). I've MUDed far more than I've MMO'd and that is a huge volume of hours.
The only reason I point this out is because I've actually played them all and I've noticed that with each new generation it becomes less and less about character and more about bling. And that's for everything RPG. The last book I could hold in my hand with the distinction of qualifying for the RP in RPG was AD&D.
Magic Items in the Player's Handbook!! Seriously? What could be more telling than that?
Gone are the days when the character sheet was a reference, now it IS the character. I've even played games without character sheets but there is some sort of greedy pride in showing your phat loot.
And maybe the news rules are meant to streamline the game ... but I don't think so. I can't imagine being a new DM and trying to discover myself now.
Before, if you could think of something to do in game, you could give it a try. A good DM (which is unusual, granted) would see the imagination in it and reward you.
"Bob the Brazen wants to leap from the stairs, grab the chandelier, swing across the room and ..."
1st ED answer: "If you make a DEX and an Attack, I'll award you double XP, you swashbuckling rogue you!"
"Sweet..."
4E answer: "Roll a Jump Check, Strength Check and an Acrobatics check to get there but you can't attack this round because your model is more than six squares away."
"Well, then I'll walk down the stairs and continue to be Bob the Boring."
I guess my point is that the rules used to be a guide. Now, there is so much more of the Handbooks that are rules. My attacks and spells aren't limited by my imagination but by the fact that it says "Once per day".
What about creative uses for those odd spells that are now so much trash? I had one clever player describe in detail the use of skulls by some cultures as drinking vessels and then cast "Create Water" inside a flaming skeletons skull because it was a drinking vessel. How about a player that cast Iron Wall "On any plane so long as it is supported on one edge" at a 45 degree angle, in the middle of a pasture in front of some charging ogres. Poof ... Save vs Spells or die! Good DM saw a struggling party and they all perished in a suitably squishy manner.
Oh but house rules ... house rules ... if you have to make so many house rules that you effectively remove the original rules, then the purpose of the original rules is..... what?
For those of you who are not familiar with the P&PRPG genre let me inform you here; it has been dying and losing players by the thousands to online games. Wizards of the Coast did what they had to do; try to capture their player base that was been lost to MMOs. The only reason I play MMOs is due to the fact that I can longer get a group of 5 adults together to play a P&P game anymore. Most of my friends have families and careers that prevent them from dedicating the amount of time that is needed to participate in a game, and I'm not even talking about the Dungeon Master, just the players. As a DM who never uses published adventures, as I prefer to write my own, it's almost like having a second job. I put in several hours a night crafting a story, creating characters, and producing storylines that my players may or may not use. On average I would say about 40 hours go into starting a new campaign. Most people who have grown up playing P&P dion't have that kind of time anymore, and this is where MMOs come into play. If you have never played in a P&P game then you are surely missing one of the best interactive expierences in gaming, period. The hard part is finding a good group of players who play the game, but don't take it to serious. I welcome D&D back into the fold, and hope that it continues to push the envelope of gaming. Earth
This post made me chuckle. WotC did not "Do what they had to do" in the least. I must say, you must make an excellent DM, for you have one hell of an imagination! All Wizards of the Coast did was try to cash in on a current market of online gamers by using a well known intellectual property name that they have rights to. If they wanted to make a game patterned after MMO's they could have easily put together some hybrid rules, as they have done in the past, and stamp an original/new name on it. Instead they took something that is known well, and cherished by many, and bastardized it.
I have dozens of friends who still make time to do TT gaming, OLD PnP style. Not this new crap. The reason WotC, and other similar gaming companies are losing players is not due to people gaming online. It is due to their manufacture of inferior, and degenerating quality in their products. I am an online MMO player of a LONG time, but I am still a role player. I do not buy many new PnP products however because most are crap. I will buy some, or read them over in the shop to see if I may enjoy, and am becoming increasingly discouraged. The patterns of current gaming trends in the PnP world is on a decline. Technology, and MMO's are not to at fault. They have no one to blame but themselves.
Thanks for responding, and yes I'll bite...
I've been running PnP games since I was 14 years old, I'm 34 now. That's 20 years of actual gaming; making my own adventures, characters and worlds. Let me guess; you've been playing MMOs for a long time, hence your post about PnP games. The reason why the genre (PnP)is losing players is due to the fact that the genre hasn't grown up with it's player base. There is no way in the 9 hells that you, who calls himself a PnP player, would chose an online MMO over a TT RPG? Get real bro; MMO in no way, shape or form, compare to the complexity, and imagination of PnP role playing.
How can someone who doesn't buy PnP games make a comparison that said games are crap? That's like saying all MMOs are crap, yet I don't buy MMOs... Again, a company MUST evolve with it's consumer, if it doesn't then it loses that consumer. D&D had to evolve with current gaming trends to keep up, hence, the combining of TTRPG and MMOs. Would you continue to buy the same car if it was produced with the same technology, 1908, that was used to make the Model T Ford when it first came out? I highly doubt it...
Sorry, but your argument holds no facts or validity. And yeah, my grammar sucks, so what.
For those of you who are not familiar with the P&PRPG genre let me inform you here; it has been dying and losing players by the thousands to online games. Wizards of the Coast did what they had to do; try to capture their player base that was been lost to MMOs. The only reason I play MMOs is due to the fact that I can longer get a group of 5 adults together to play a P&P game anymore. Most of my friends have families and careers that prevent them from dedicating the amount of time that is needed to participate in a game, and I'm not even talking about the Dungeon Master, just the players. As a DM who never uses published adventures, as I prefer to write my own, it's almost like having a second job. I put in several hours a night crafting a story, creating characters, and producing storylines that my players may or may not use. On average I would say about 40 hours go into starting a new campaign. Most people who have grown up playing P&P dion't have that kind of time anymore, and this is where MMOs come into play. If you have never played in a P&P game then you are surely missing one of the best interactive expierences in gaming, period. The hard part is finding a good group of players who play the game, but don't take it to serious. I welcome D&D back into the fold, and hope that it continues to push the envelope of gaming. Earth
This post made me chuckle. WotC did not "Do what they had to do" in the least. I must say, you must make an excellent DM, for you have one hell of an imagination! All Wizards of the Coast did was try to cash in on a current market of online gamers by using a well known intellectual property name that they have rights to. If they wanted to make a game patterned after MMO's they could have easily put together some hybrid rules, as they have done in the past, and stamp an original/new name on it. Instead they took something that is known well, and cherished by many, and bastardized it.
I have dozens of friends who still make time to do TT gaming, OLD PnP style. Not this new crap. The reason WotC, and other similar gaming companies are losing players is not due to people gaming online. It is due to their manufacture of inferior, and degenerating quality in their products. I am an online MMO player of a LONG time, but I am still a role player. I do not buy many new PnP products however because most are crap. I will buy some, or read them over in the shop to see if I may enjoy, and am becoming increasingly discouraged. The patterns of current gaming trends in the PnP world is on a decline. Technology, and MMO's are not to at fault. They have no one to blame but themselves.
Thanks for responding, and yes I'll bite...
I've been running PnP games since I was 14 years old, I'm 34 now. That's 20 years of actual gaming; making my own adventures, characters and worlds. Let me guess; you've been playing MMOs for a long time, hence your post about PnP games. The reason why the genre (PnP)is losing players is due to the fact that the genre hasn't grown up with it's player base. There is no way in the 9 hells that you, who calls himself a PnP player, would chose an online MMO over a TT RPG? Get real bro; MMO in no way, shape or form, compare to the complexity, and imagination of PnP role playing.
How can someone who doesn't buy PnP games make a comparison that said games are crap? That's like saying all MMOs are crap, yet I don't buy MMOs... Again, a company MUST evolve with it's consumer, if it doesn't then it loses that consumer. D&D had to evolve with current gaming trends to keep up, hence, the combining of TTRPG and MMOs. Would you continue to buy the same car if it was produced with the same technology, 1908, that was used to make the Model T Ford when it first came out? I highly doubt it...
Sorry, but your argument holds no facts or validity. And yeah, my grammar sucks, so what.
Hmm, not sure you read my earlier post (Or this one for that matter) as I stated then that I have been playing PnP for quite a time. No sense in me reposting my old post, so I won't. Uhm, not sure where in this post I said I choose online MMO over TT RPG's either. As I recall, I stated that I am both an MMO player AND a TT PnP player. *Reads his post yet another time* Yep, sure did! "I am an online MMO player of a LONG time, but I am still a role player" there ya have it. Further, I did not say I do not buy PnP games. I said I do not buy MANY of the NEW products as I find them to be crap. I even clarified in case some idiot came along who tried to claim I have no foundation for my OPINION, by stating that before I make the decision to NOT buy those new products, I DO go into shops and read them over. At that same time I even said I DO buy some. Hmm, and you end by saying that MY argument holds no fact or validity? You sir should not take my post so personally when you read the opening lines, and maybe read what I say before you try calling me out, or shooting me down. You failed miserably.
To be clear for you, I DO play PnP TT games. I DO write my own adventures. In my many years I have not been one to rely on the premade adventures or modules that release. I have several of them, for alternate loot tables they provided back during First ED and Second.
Anyway, rather than take such a holier than thou position, step off your pedestal and don't be so quick to lash out. It really is not needed. You stated your opinion. Great. I stated mine. And I stand by my very valid opinion that WotC was not "Doing what they had to" but rather were just out to make a quick buck. Maybe instead of trying to flame me based on things you do not know, stick to the topic rather than trying to start a flame war? Thanks. Have a nice day.
For those of you who are not familiar with the P&PRPG genre let me inform you here; it has been dying and losing players by the thousands to online games. Wizards of the Coast did what they had to do; try to capture their player base that was been lost to MMOs. The only reason I play MMOs is due to the fact that I can longer get a group of 5 adults together to play a P&P game anymore. Most of my friends have families and careers that prevent them from dedicating the amount of time that is needed to participate in a game, and I'm not even talking about the Dungeon Master, just the players. As a DM who never uses published adventures, as I prefer to write my own, it's almost like having a second job. I put in several hours a night crafting a story, creating characters, and producing storylines that my players may or may not use. On average I would say about 40 hours go into starting a new campaign. Most people who have grown up playing P&P dion't have that kind of time anymore, and this is where MMOs come into play. If you have never played in a P&P game then you are surely missing one of the best interactive expierences in gaming, period. The hard part is finding a good group of players who play the game, but don't take it to serious. I welcome D&D back into the fold, and hope that it continues to push the envelope of gaming. Earth
This post made me chuckle. WotC did not "Do what they had to do" in the least. I must say, you must make an excellent DM, for you have one hell of an imagination! All Wizards of the Coast did was try to cash in on a current market of online gamers by using a well known intellectual property name that they have rights to. If they wanted to make a game patterned after MMO's they could have easily put together some hybrid rules, as they have done in the past, and stamp an original/new name on it. Instead they took something that is known well, and cherished by many, and bastardized it.
I have dozens of friends who still make time to do TT gaming, OLD PnP style. Not this new crap. The reason WotC, and other similar gaming companies are losing players is not due to people gaming online. It is due to their manufacture of inferior, and degenerating quality in their products. I am an online MMO player of a LONG time, but I am still a role player. I do not buy many new PnP products however because most are crap. I will buy some, or read them over in the shop to see if I may enjoy, and am becoming increasingly discouraged. The patterns of current gaming trends in the PnP world is on a decline. Technology, and MMO's are not to at fault. They have no one to blame but themselves.
Thanks for responding, and yes I'll bite...
I've been running PnP games since I was 14 years old, I'm 34 now. That's 20 years of actual gaming; making my own adventures, characters and worlds. Let me guess; you've been playing MMOs for a long time, hence your post about PnP games. The reason why the genre (PnP)is losing players is due to the fact that the genre hasn't grown up with it's player base. There is no way in the 9 hells that you, who calls himself a PnP player, would chose an online MMO over a TT RPG? Get real bro; MMO in no way, shape or form, compare to the complexity, and imagination of PnP role playing.
How can someone who doesn't buy PnP games make a comparison that said games are crap? That's like saying all MMOs are crap, yet I don't buy MMOs... Again, a company MUST evolve with it's consumer, if it doesn't then it loses that consumer. D&D had to evolve with current gaming trends to keep up, hence, the combining of TTRPG and MMOs. Would you continue to buy the same car if it was produced with the same technology, 1908, that was used to make the Model T Ford when it first came out? I highly doubt it...
Sorry, but your argument holds no facts or validity. And yeah, my grammar sucks, so what.
Hmm, not sure you read my earlier post (Or this one for that matter) as I stated then that I have been playing PnP for quite a time. No sense in me reposting my old post, so I won't. Uhm, not sure where in this post I said I choose online MMO over TT RPG's either. As I recall, I stated that I am both an MMO player AND a TT PnP player. *Reads his post yet another time* Yep, sure did! "I am an online MMO player of a LONG time, but I am still a role player" there ya have it. Further, I did not say I do not buy PnP games. I said I do not buy MANY of the NEW products as I find them to be crap. I even clarified in case some idiot came along who tried to claim I have no foundation for my OPINION, by stating that before I make the decision to NOT buy those new products, I DO go into shops and read them over. At that same time I even said I DO buy some. Hmm, and you end by saying that MY argument holds no fact or validity? You sir should not take my post so personally when you read the opening lines, and maybe read what I say before you try calling me out, or shooting me down. You failed miserably.
To be clear for you, I DO play PnP TT games. I DO write my own adventures. In my many years I have not been one to rely on the premade adventures or modules that release. I have several of them, for alternate loot tables they provided back during First ED and Second.
Anyway, rather than take such a holier than thou position, step off your pedestal and don't be so quick to lash out. It really is not needed. You stated your opinion. Great. I stated mine. And I stand by my very valid opinion that WotC was not "Doing what they had to" but rather were just out to make a quick buck. Maybe instead of trying to flame me based on things you do not know, stick to the topic rather than trying to start a flame war? Thanks. Have a nice day.
Not trying to flame, but you didn't answer my question. Fair enough though, to each his own and all that jazz. Play what you play.
I have been playing D&D since 1986. I have on my book shelves the complete 2nd edition core and accessory books and I also have all the Forgotten Realms books and box sets. I have read everyone of those books from cover to cover and I created a world for people to live in and enjoy. This means you need the following skills..
Reading...Yes that means you have to open a book and do more then use it for a doorstop
Comprehension...this means that you actually have to grasp what the words mean.
Math..there are lots of dice to add up and its not like craps you don't bet you pray.
Cooperation...this means that to accomplish a goal you must work "together"
Writing....this is done with a pen and paper. this is why they are called PnP games
Ok now that we have completely had to revamp the American educational systems to get this far , there is one more thing thats needed.
IMAGINATION....this comes from using your head for something other then holding a hat. Its frowned upon by most ppl today and is considered by some to be a sign of mental illness.
Yes I know that some of these things are needed for MMO's and I am not bashing them I play them just like everyone else. But they don't have the human equation in the same way as PnP games. With all that said I have one more statement and this is one that I will never change my mind about.....
WoTC killed Dungeons and Dragons. It took it apart, turned it upside down and turned an institution into a cash cow. There are still ppl out there that consider us 2nd editioners to be freaks of nature as we don't use all of the 1st edition rules. We use to call them "pureists" . I now understand how they felt. if you dumb down the game much more you might as well hand somebody a game of chutes and ladders(not bashing the game. i enjoyed it when i was child).
I am sorry this is such a long post but this is one major pet in my peeve corral. Long Live the Goddess Mystra may magic rule forever
Comments
Just how much room we'll have to customize the Virtual tabletop will be what gets players off the fence, so to speak. The game is what you make it, truly.
omg this is the end..................
5th edition will have an option to walk away from the table and let a bot handle the grind....
5th adition will let you pay 5$ to wotc for powerleveling your character from 1 to 26
5th edition will have a petition queque for your gm
in all honesty the "features" described by the author came from limitations that computer games have in contrast to pen and paper.
the reason why each mmo and their siblings use standard grp layout of tank,healer, dps (and buffer) is because the quests/ encounters relay on linear, scripted computer ai. in pen&paper its totally ok and challenging for 2 mages and a clerik or a group of thieves to do an adventure.
the origin of pen&paper rpg for me is not some ruleset but to tell an interactive story by the gm with an audience of players. the rules are only there to ensure that the actions are some kind of limited and fun to play out. in that aspect computer mmorpgs have still years to catch up to classic p&p
if your bored, visit my blog at:
http://craylon.wordpress.com/ dealing with the look of mmos with the nvidia 3d vision glasses
Also remember that we have Three core books at this time of writing. 4E will keep expanding and the rules makes IMO more sense than those of 3.X.
I like the fact that there's defined roles to fill. One of my pet pieves is when a guy in my group makes some useless charcter that will be extremely overpowered at level 20, but not till then and the rest of the group has to piggy back him most of the way there. Plus, even fighters are useful now
Simple is good.
Complexity for the sake of complexity was never Gary's goal. New rules where added to make the game better, this simplification is well done IMO.
- "If I understand you well, you are telling me until next time. " - Ren
For those of you who are not familiar with the P&PRPG genre let me inform you here; it has been dying and losing players by the thousands to online games. Wizards of the Coast did what they had to do; try to capture their player base that was been lost to MMOs. The only reason I play MMOs is due to the fact that I can longer get a group of 5 adults together to play a P&P game anymore. Most of my friends have families and careers that prevent them from dedicating the amount of time that is needed to participate in a game, and I'm not even talking about the Dungeon Master, just the players.
As a DM who never uses published adventures, as I prefer to write my own, it's almost like having a second job. I put in several hours a night crafting a story, creating characters, and producing storylines that my players may or may not use. On average I would say about 40 hours go into starting a new campaign. Most people who have grown up playing P&P dion't have that kind of time anymore, and this is where MMOs come into play.
If you have never played in a P&P game then you are surely missing one of the best interactive expierences in gaming, period. The hard part is finding a good group of players who play the game, but don't take it to serious. I welcome D&D back into the fold, and hope that it continues to push the envelope of gaming.
Earth
Games must evolve to keep their player base interested, AND bring new players to the table (so to speak). Example: Rifts (by Palladium Books): best setting in P&P, but the rules havnet changed in 20 years. So, players stop playing and stores stop stocking the games. D&D while I don't agree with 3 rule changes in less than 10 years, I can understand why. Evolve or become non existent, basic rule of the universe.
Are you sure you were playing D&D? Because if you were playing without a rogue or a cleric then your DM was hacking the game to pieces and unlocking doors like crazy. No party from base D&D up to 3.5 made it far without a healer unless the DM was fudging every roll. Case in point, according to the rules an Ogre will drop any level 3 class but a fighter or barb in a couple of swings, or close to it. Play DDO a bit and you'll see how fast most monsters take people down without a DM there pretending your rogue didn't just take a tree to the chest for 1.5x his max HPs for that level. Throw in crits and it's a party wipe in short order.
And wouldn't it seem odd that this evil overlord hasn't locked a single door in his palace or bothered to booby trap his treasure room?
The fact that this is a complaint is proof that you haven't read any of the rules for 4E, because if you had you would know that this actually does away with most of the class restrictions in this regard. There are 2 healing classes now, and anyone can heal themselves for a considerable amount(healers are only really needed if you're taking a good beating while actually in a fight, no more of this 2 HPs a day crap), and all theivery based actions are rolled into one skill that anyone can learn, with the DM's option(isn't everything?) that some stuff is specialized to the rogue only.
I'd encourage you all to at least familiarize yourself with some of changes before you make blanket assumptions.
Well, are you sure you've played a pen & paper RPG at all? Because if you imply that picking a lock is the only way to open a door or to get to what is around it, I'm blaming you and the other players for lack of imagination. Fighters and barbarians just bash the door, druid shapes the wooden chest (or metal, or stone), monk can ignore object hardness (useful for cutting steel bars in prison), wizards and sorcs have 'knock' spell that unlocks stuff and disintegrate that, well, does... And that's just the ways the rules directly support opening stuff up. That still leaves out dozens of ways imaginative players can get doors opened (find the guard with the keys, knock on the door and wait until they open etc.)
And traps... Don't talk to me about traps. *half-orc fighter walks into trap.Trap goes off, half-orc takes damage.* "Grunt. Trap." *half-orc goes to kill the guy who set the trap.* Monks and paladins simply save vs. the trap, clerics buff themselves, barbarians have improved evasion, and both ranger and bard class can see it before stepping on it. And of course there's the old staple 'let the minion go first'.
In pen&paper, all these systems work. You don't need to have someone who gives '30hp/sec' during a fight to the fighter, since if he's getting knocked about he can do something different to avoid taking that damage (expertise, disarm, knockdown enemies etc. etc.) And there's always running away or letting someone else take the beating (like the wizard, who's bound to be real appreciative).
In most MMO's simplified fighting rules, everything is based on modding the damage per second, hit point buffer, aggro range & level, and incoming healing per second for a character. You could simply calculate the relative values between the party and the encounter, and declare a winner right away.
I'm not saying that simplified rules are a bad thing. I've played with even lighter, storytelling type rules, and they work fine. What I'm saying is that I don't like what I see in the new rules system, and think it's a huge change from the basic feel of the old system, even larger then the leap from 2nd ed to 3rd.
4th Edition may be D&D, but it sure as hell isn't AD&D! Wizards may have well just re-released the old Elf is a class/dwarf is a class original D&D. Simple is fine for starting a game or playing with novices or children, but the complexity of AD&D is what made it fun - and it still required MORE rules because intelligent players came up with things not even close to covered by the rules. DMing was a fulltime job! Miniatures and hex terrain made things better [as the online program may in some respects - IFF it allows the DM to use whatever rules he wishes], as did programs like DMGenie, but characters had depth.
3rd Edition was dumbed down, 4th Edition is fully lobotomised! No more D&D for me, thanks.
<p align=center><a target=_blank href=http://www.nodiatis.com/personality.htm><img border=0 src=http://www.nodiatis.com/pub/20.jpg></a></p>;
The most fascinating thing about P&P is the fact that you can "mod" the rules to fit YOUR game. MMOs don't allow you to do that at all. In fact, MMOs have dumbed down gaming in my opinion; once you find a strategy against a boss it ALWAYS works. On the other hand, you can't count on a recurring villian to use the same strategies in P&P, the DM won't allow it lol.
LOL at the people who are saying 4E brings the dreaded "trinity" to tabletop RPGs.
It is NOT a rule that every party MUST contain a character for each role. It is a suggestion, intended mainly for people who are new to RPGs.
If you want to have a game where the players are all Rangers, I'm sure you can manage just fine. If the campaign requires some finessing or modification to make this viable, so be it.
That is what the DM is for.
It is the DM's job to make the game fun for the players, no matter how they choose to play.
That is the difference between a DM and a computer, and why tabletop games have the potential to be so much more entertaining.
If your DM runs his campaign like a computer, maybe you should find a new DM.
Well said Finwolven.
DnD and indeed all PnP games have always had that element of endless possibilities. That was the whole point. I myself hated when we focused on the mechanics more than the strategy and story telling. All the calculations could take forever, and half the time I looked for ways to avoid the monsters in interesting ways rather than have to sit through all the rolls for constant combat.
And of course the situations you found yourself in were endless. Sure some overlord might have locked doors, but as you mentioned there are countless ways to overcome these. Other times you were just in natural caves and there might be no need for a thief. Other times there might be need for absolute stealth and you would send in ONLY the thief. It all depended.
The game was for a small group of players, they were the focus of the world, the action was all tailored around them. The complexities and possibility of situation was all up to them and the DM and they could take advantage of the rules and handbook content to whatever extent desired.
I believe the whole problem with MMORPGs today is that they were based on such a wide-scope roleplaying environment that they could never hope to match. Sure the computer could do all the calculations much better, so we got single player RPGs where at least the player was still the focus of the world and the story could be well crafted and written, with multiple possibilities in the best titles, but even there much more limited than PnP. Then we had a few games like Neverwinter Nights where I think they had the right idea for online application of DnD type mechanics, where you could play over the internet with your friends, but still craft things to their preferences.
The jump to MMORPG was however, the mistake. Now there were thousands of players in one world. Dev created content could never be tailored to them at a large enough scale to be interesting. All the endless possibilities were gone and we were left with the leveling and the dungeon crawling, only small parts of the PnP RPGs and hardly able to bear the keywords ROLE PLAYING.
Instead what we should have gotten out of MMOs (and indeed some of the early ones showed steps in the right direction, but it has been a backward slide since then) was the vast potential of computer system to handle all of the mechanics to create a rich dynamic persistent world where the thousands of players interacting with each other and the environment in competitive and cooperative ways could create content spontaneously with every action.
Instead we found that the PnP design doesn't work in that open persistent setting and we get more of the arbitrary mechanics that lead to instances, soul-bound equipment, etc. because with all these people running around in a world that was supposed to focus on the adventuring party having fun encounters in a dungeon and getting all the phat loot, we had people running into each other and ruining things for each other because the design was never intended to take advantage of player encounters. Just imagine if you and your PnP pals entered the dungeon only to be told by the DM that all the loot was gone, the monsters were all dead, cuz someone beat you to it.
But the point of this thread is not to fix what has long been broken in MMORPG design, and although I realize that PnP games are largely what you make of them, it just seems somewhat ridiculous that the next gen of DnD is being informed by MMORPG design which was flawed for being based on small-party PnP systems to begin with. Thank goodness you can just keep your old manuals instead of waking up one day to find that a patch has irrevocably changed the game you came to know and love.
IronOre - Forging the Future
A-friggin-men, brother. I haven't been able to find a group to play my campaigns since I moved from NJ 11 years ago. I have stories saved up for years-worth of AD&D campaigns, and no players to challenge with them.
A good DM is hard to find. A great DM who doesn't throw everything together on-the-fly is worth keeping at all costs. Sadly, no one seems to realize this anymore. Some days it makes me want to weep.
I long for the days of old-school tabletop AD&D, Rifts, etc...
No godless person can comprehend those minute distinctions
in doctrine that provide true believers excuse for mayhem.
-Glen Cook
/agreed
but the problem is that new players will get the impression they are limited and i dont want people believing that bilbo beutlin stood in the rain for hours shouting "lf tank and healer to make a ring run"
if your bored, visit my blog at:
http://craylon.wordpress.com/ dealing with the look of mmos with the nvidia 3d vision glasses
I'm just sorry for the poor bard. He seems to be gone, while Druids, Rangers, Monks and Barbarians need to wait for their own supplements. Hope you didn't play a bard in a campaign that's getting 'upgraded' to 4.0 by the DM. Or a Gnome Illusionist. Or a Half-Orc anything.
Don't be alarmed by the alarmist, he obviously hasn't read the 4th ed rules yet. You can easily convert your 3.5ed character to 4th edition. What this new addition does is take away all of the rules that were not needed. Now your group has room to "roleplay" without being hampered by too many rules. It reminds me of the Story Teller system for White Wolf games. Also, if your character is not represented in the new rule set just yet, then check out the D&D forums. I found a kick ass druid template that I can't wait to use.
I can totaly understand the reason why most groups don't want to conver to 4th editon. My suggestion is to play what you feel most comfoprtable playing. I got rid of my 3.5 books, and only kept Eberron which I plan to use for my game world. Again, no one is being forced to play or buy the 4th edition game. And let's be honest here; you could play for years and never use half of the 3.5 edition books that were printed.
Earth
Going to have to disagree slightly given that my group played for many years with the first edition PHB Dm guide and Monmster manual.
This post made me chuckle. WotC did not "Do what they had to do" in the least. I must say, you must make an excellent DM, for you have one hell of an imagination! All Wizards of the Coast did was try to cash in on a current market of online gamers by using a well known intellectual property name that they have rights to. If they wanted to make a game patterned after MMO's they could have easily put together some hybrid rules, as they have done in the past, and stamp an original/new name on it. Instead they took something that is known well, and cherished by many, and bastardized it.
I have dozens of friends who still make time to do TT gaming, OLD PnP style. Not this new crap. The reason WotC, and other similar gaming companies are losing players is not due to people gaming online. It is due to their manufacture of inferior, and degenerating quality in their products. I am an online MMO player of a LONG time, but I am still a role player. I do not buy many new PnP products however because most are crap. I will buy some, or read them over in the shop to see if I may enjoy, and am becoming increasingly discouraged. The patterns of current gaming trends in the PnP world is on a decline. Technology, and MMO's are not to at fault. They have no one to blame but themselves.
Ok this may indeed be a silly question. If it is I apologize in advance, but does anyone know where the OP got the image that he used to display this article on the frontpage of the site? I would love to find it and make a wallpaper out of it if anyone has any ideas. Thanks!
Bryan
I happen to be of the unusual generation that discovered gaming at the dawn of graphical RPGs (Bard's Tale anyone?) and the height of DnD. My first games were out of the Red Box but we soon moved on to 1ED and AD&D (then 3rd, 3.5 and now 4e). I've MUDed far more than I've MMO'd and that is a huge volume of hours.
The only reason I point this out is because I've actually played them all and I've noticed that with each new generation it becomes less and less about character and more about bling. And that's for everything RPG. The last book I could hold in my hand with the distinction of qualifying for the RP in RPG was AD&D.
Magic Items in the Player's Handbook!! Seriously? What could be more telling than that?
Gone are the days when the character sheet was a reference, now it IS the character. I've even played games without character sheets but there is some sort of greedy pride in showing your phat loot.
And maybe the news rules are meant to streamline the game ... but I don't think so. I can't imagine being a new DM and trying to discover myself now.
Before, if you could think of something to do in game, you could give it a try. A good DM (which is unusual, granted) would see the imagination in it and reward you.
"Bob the Brazen wants to leap from the stairs, grab the chandelier, swing across the room and ..."
1st ED answer: "If you make a DEX and an Attack, I'll award you double XP, you swashbuckling rogue you!"
"Sweet..."
4E answer: "Roll a Jump Check, Strength Check and an Acrobatics check to get there but you can't attack this round because your model is more than six squares away."
"Well, then I'll walk down the stairs and continue to be Bob the Boring."
I guess my point is that the rules used to be a guide. Now, there is so much more of the Handbooks that are rules. My attacks and spells aren't limited by my imagination but by the fact that it says "Once per day".
What about creative uses for those odd spells that are now so much trash? I had one clever player describe in detail the use of skulls by some cultures as drinking vessels and then cast "Create Water" inside a flaming skeletons skull because it was a drinking vessel. How about a player that cast Iron Wall "On any plane so long as it is supported on one edge" at a 45 degree angle, in the middle of a pasture in front of some charging ogres. Poof ... Save vs Spells or die! Good DM saw a struggling party and they all perished in a suitably squishy manner.
Oh but house rules ... house rules ... if you have to make so many house rules that you effectively remove the original rules, then the purpose of the original rules is..... what?
This post made me chuckle. WotC did not "Do what they had to do" in the least. I must say, you must make an excellent DM, for you have one hell of an imagination! All Wizards of the Coast did was try to cash in on a current market of online gamers by using a well known intellectual property name that they have rights to. If they wanted to make a game patterned after MMO's they could have easily put together some hybrid rules, as they have done in the past, and stamp an original/new name on it. Instead they took something that is known well, and cherished by many, and bastardized it.
I have dozens of friends who still make time to do TT gaming, OLD PnP style. Not this new crap. The reason WotC, and other similar gaming companies are losing players is not due to people gaming online. It is due to their manufacture of inferior, and degenerating quality in their products. I am an online MMO player of a LONG time, but I am still a role player. I do not buy many new PnP products however because most are crap. I will buy some, or read them over in the shop to see if I may enjoy, and am becoming increasingly discouraged. The patterns of current gaming trends in the PnP world is on a decline. Technology, and MMO's are not to at fault. They have no one to blame but themselves.
Thanks for responding, and yes I'll bite...
I've been running PnP games since I was 14 years old, I'm 34 now. That's 20 years of actual gaming; making my own adventures, characters and worlds. Let me guess; you've been playing MMOs for a long time, hence your post about PnP games. The reason why the genre (PnP)is losing players is due to the fact that the genre hasn't grown up with it's player base. There is no way in the 9 hells that you, who calls himself a PnP player, would chose an online MMO over a TT RPG? Get real bro; MMO in no way, shape or form, compare to the complexity, and imagination of PnP role playing.
How can someone who doesn't buy PnP games make a comparison that said games are crap? That's like saying all MMOs are crap, yet I don't buy MMOs... Again, a company MUST evolve with it's consumer, if it doesn't then it loses that consumer. D&D had to evolve with current gaming trends to keep up, hence, the combining of TTRPG and MMOs. Would you continue to buy the same car if it was produced with the same technology, 1908, that was used to make the Model T Ford when it first came out? I highly doubt it...
Sorry, but your argument holds no facts or validity. And yeah, my grammar sucks, so what.
This post made me chuckle. WotC did not "Do what they had to do" in the least. I must say, you must make an excellent DM, for you have one hell of an imagination! All Wizards of the Coast did was try to cash in on a current market of online gamers by using a well known intellectual property name that they have rights to. If they wanted to make a game patterned after MMO's they could have easily put together some hybrid rules, as they have done in the past, and stamp an original/new name on it. Instead they took something that is known well, and cherished by many, and bastardized it.
I have dozens of friends who still make time to do TT gaming, OLD PnP style. Not this new crap. The reason WotC, and other similar gaming companies are losing players is not due to people gaming online. It is due to their manufacture of inferior, and degenerating quality in their products. I am an online MMO player of a LONG time, but I am still a role player. I do not buy many new PnP products however because most are crap. I will buy some, or read them over in the shop to see if I may enjoy, and am becoming increasingly discouraged. The patterns of current gaming trends in the PnP world is on a decline. Technology, and MMO's are not to at fault. They have no one to blame but themselves.
Thanks for responding, and yes I'll bite...
I've been running PnP games since I was 14 years old, I'm 34 now. That's 20 years of actual gaming; making my own adventures, characters and worlds. Let me guess; you've been playing MMOs for a long time, hence your post about PnP games. The reason why the genre (PnP)is losing players is due to the fact that the genre hasn't grown up with it's player base. There is no way in the 9 hells that you, who calls himself a PnP player, would chose an online MMO over a TT RPG? Get real bro; MMO in no way, shape or form, compare to the complexity, and imagination of PnP role playing.
How can someone who doesn't buy PnP games make a comparison that said games are crap? That's like saying all MMOs are crap, yet I don't buy MMOs... Again, a company MUST evolve with it's consumer, if it doesn't then it loses that consumer. D&D had to evolve with current gaming trends to keep up, hence, the combining of TTRPG and MMOs. Would you continue to buy the same car if it was produced with the same technology, 1908, that was used to make the Model T Ford when it first came out? I highly doubt it...
Sorry, but your argument holds no facts or validity. And yeah, my grammar sucks, so what.
Hmm, not sure you read my earlier post (Or this one for that matter) as I stated then that I have been playing PnP for quite a time. No sense in me reposting my old post, so I won't. Uhm, not sure where in this post I said I choose online MMO over TT RPG's either. As I recall, I stated that I am both an MMO player AND a TT PnP player. *Reads his post yet another time* Yep, sure did! "I am an online MMO player of a LONG time, but I am still a role player" there ya have it. Further, I did not say I do not buy PnP games. I said I do not buy MANY of the NEW products as I find them to be crap. I even clarified in case some idiot came along who tried to claim I have no foundation for my OPINION, by stating that before I make the decision to NOT buy those new products, I DO go into shops and read them over. At that same time I even said I DO buy some. Hmm, and you end by saying that MY argument holds no fact or validity? You sir should not take my post so personally when you read the opening lines, and maybe read what I say before you try calling me out, or shooting me down. You failed miserably.
To be clear for you, I DO play PnP TT games. I DO write my own adventures. In my many years I have not been one to rely on the premade adventures or modules that release. I have several of them, for alternate loot tables they provided back during First ED and Second.
Anyway, rather than take such a holier than thou position, step off your pedestal and don't be so quick to lash out. It really is not needed. You stated your opinion. Great. I stated mine. And I stand by my very valid opinion that WotC was not "Doing what they had to" but rather were just out to make a quick buck. Maybe instead of trying to flame me based on things you do not know, stick to the topic rather than trying to start a flame war? Thanks. Have a nice day.
This post made me chuckle. WotC did not "Do what they had to do" in the least. I must say, you must make an excellent DM, for you have one hell of an imagination! All Wizards of the Coast did was try to cash in on a current market of online gamers by using a well known intellectual property name that they have rights to. If they wanted to make a game patterned after MMO's they could have easily put together some hybrid rules, as they have done in the past, and stamp an original/new name on it. Instead they took something that is known well, and cherished by many, and bastardized it.
I have dozens of friends who still make time to do TT gaming, OLD PnP style. Not this new crap. The reason WotC, and other similar gaming companies are losing players is not due to people gaming online. It is due to their manufacture of inferior, and degenerating quality in their products. I am an online MMO player of a LONG time, but I am still a role player. I do not buy many new PnP products however because most are crap. I will buy some, or read them over in the shop to see if I may enjoy, and am becoming increasingly discouraged. The patterns of current gaming trends in the PnP world is on a decline. Technology, and MMO's are not to at fault. They have no one to blame but themselves.
Thanks for responding, and yes I'll bite...
I've been running PnP games since I was 14 years old, I'm 34 now. That's 20 years of actual gaming; making my own adventures, characters and worlds. Let me guess; you've been playing MMOs for a long time, hence your post about PnP games. The reason why the genre (PnP)is losing players is due to the fact that the genre hasn't grown up with it's player base. There is no way in the 9 hells that you, who calls himself a PnP player, would chose an online MMO over a TT RPG? Get real bro; MMO in no way, shape or form, compare to the complexity, and imagination of PnP role playing.
How can someone who doesn't buy PnP games make a comparison that said games are crap? That's like saying all MMOs are crap, yet I don't buy MMOs... Again, a company MUST evolve with it's consumer, if it doesn't then it loses that consumer. D&D had to evolve with current gaming trends to keep up, hence, the combining of TTRPG and MMOs. Would you continue to buy the same car if it was produced with the same technology, 1908, that was used to make the Model T Ford when it first came out? I highly doubt it...
Sorry, but your argument holds no facts or validity. And yeah, my grammar sucks, so what.
Hmm, not sure you read my earlier post (Or this one for that matter) as I stated then that I have been playing PnP for quite a time. No sense in me reposting my old post, so I won't. Uhm, not sure where in this post I said I choose online MMO over TT RPG's either. As I recall, I stated that I am both an MMO player AND a TT PnP player. *Reads his post yet another time* Yep, sure did! "I am an online MMO player of a LONG time, but I am still a role player" there ya have it. Further, I did not say I do not buy PnP games. I said I do not buy MANY of the NEW products as I find them to be crap. I even clarified in case some idiot came along who tried to claim I have no foundation for my OPINION, by stating that before I make the decision to NOT buy those new products, I DO go into shops and read them over. At that same time I even said I DO buy some. Hmm, and you end by saying that MY argument holds no fact or validity? You sir should not take my post so personally when you read the opening lines, and maybe read what I say before you try calling me out, or shooting me down. You failed miserably.
To be clear for you, I DO play PnP TT games. I DO write my own adventures. In my many years I have not been one to rely on the premade adventures or modules that release. I have several of them, for alternate loot tables they provided back during First ED and Second.
Anyway, rather than take such a holier than thou position, step off your pedestal and don't be so quick to lash out. It really is not needed. You stated your opinion. Great. I stated mine. And I stand by my very valid opinion that WotC was not "Doing what they had to" but rather were just out to make a quick buck. Maybe instead of trying to flame me based on things you do not know, stick to the topic rather than trying to start a flame war? Thanks. Have a nice day.
Not trying to flame, but you didn't answer my question. Fair enough though, to each his own and all that jazz. Play what you play.
Earth
I have been playing D&D since 1986. I have on my book shelves the complete 2nd edition core and accessory books and I also have all the Forgotten Realms books and box sets. I have read everyone of those books from cover to cover and I created a world for people to live in and enjoy. This means you need the following skills..
Reading...Yes that means you have to open a book and do more then use it for a doorstop
Comprehension...this means that you actually have to grasp what the words mean.
Math..there are lots of dice to add up and its not like craps you don't bet you pray.
Cooperation...this means that to accomplish a goal you must work "together"
Writing....this is done with a pen and paper. this is why they are called PnP games
Ok now that we have completely had to revamp the American educational systems to get this far , there is one more thing thats needed.
IMAGINATION....this comes from using your head for something other then holding a hat. Its frowned upon by most ppl today and is considered by some to be a sign of mental illness.
Yes I know that some of these things are needed for MMO's and I am not bashing them I play them just like everyone else. But they don't have the human equation in the same way as PnP games. With all that said I have one more statement and this is one that I will never change my mind about.....
WoTC killed Dungeons and Dragons. It took it apart, turned it upside down and turned an institution into a cash cow. There are still ppl out there that consider us 2nd editioners to be freaks of nature as we don't use all of the 1st edition rules. We use to call them "pureists" . I now understand how they felt. if you dumb down the game much more you might as well hand somebody a game of chutes and ladders(not bashing the game. i enjoyed it when i was child).
I am sorry this is such a long post but this is one major pet in my peeve corral. Long Live the Goddess Mystra may magic rule forever
Wow and I thought I was old
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CASUAL CONFESSIONS - Draccan's blog
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